FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ANGLICAN COMMUNION - PAGE 5

A transition of power in the nation's most prestigious religious denomination was enacted here Saturday in a ceremony rich in traditional pageantry but tinged with a spirit of innovation that may become a hallmark of the new administration of the Episcopal Church. Bishop Edmond Lee Browning, a soft-spoken but activist 56-year-old churchman, accepted the symbols of his office as the 24th presiding bishop of the venerable denomination. The 2 1/2-hour investiture ceremony was held in the Gothic splendor of the Washington Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the sixth largest church in Christendom.

After an initial tally made it clear Saturday that Rev. Bonnie Perry would not be the next Episcopal bishop of California, the popular Chicago pastor resolved that it was not her calling and withdrew from the race. Perry, the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Ravenswood, was one of three openly homosexual candidates running for the bishop's seat--a nomination made controversial by the debate over the role of gays in the Anglican Communion and its American arm, the Episcopal Church.

If conservatives' demands for sanctions on the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion are not met, the church risks a worldwide split, the American Anglican Council said Wednesday, the midpoint of its conference here. Much of the support in the 77-million-member communion for the council's conservative positions lies outside the United States, primarily in the Southern Hemisphere, said Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan. Failure to discipline the Episcopal Church--the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion--for its recent actions could result in "a wrenching split in the whole fabric of the communion," Duncan said.

Rev. Barbara Harris became the first woman bishop in the 454-year history of the worldwide Anglican Communion Saturday during a momentous, 3 1/2-hour ceremony at which the objections of a handful of dissidents were drowned out by cheers from more than 7,000 supporters. Bishop Harris, a 58-year-old former Philadelphia priest, was consecrated as she knelt before presiding U.S. Episcopal Bishop Edmond Browning in the cavernous Hynes Memorial Auditorium in Boston's convention center, chosen to accommodate the huge crowd.

The mood in the hearing room was unexpectedly somber and sedate as delegates to the Episcopal General Convention lined up at respective microphones marked "pro" and "con"--a clear picture of the impassioned, divisive debate that threatens to split the worldwide Anglican family of churches. "I love you, Gene, but this is painful" said one bishop, Keith Ackerman of Quincy, Ill., before he proceeded to argue that the Episcopal Church was not ready to approve an openly gay minister, Rev. V. Gene Robinson, 50, as bishop of New Hampshire.

Seeking to hold together a splintering church, Anglican bishops and theologians on Monday asked American Episcopalians to apologize for consecrating an openly gay bishop last year and not to do it again unless church leaders consent. The 17-member panel, appointed last year by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, also implored the American and Canadian branches of the Anglican Communion not to bless same-sex unions until further notice. But the report did not recommend expelling the Episcopal Church from the communion, as some critics had hoped, and the gay bishop was not asked to resign.

Women always have been a major force in most American churches, but only in recent years are their voices being heard from the pulpit in significant numbers. The same call to equality of position and power that women are heeding in other professions is resounding within church denominations across the country. The result is that the number of women in seminaries has mushroomed in recent years. At Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, the number of women working toward degrees and planning to become members of the clergy increased from 9 in 1973 to 55 in 1991.

The Random House Dictionary of the English Language begins its definition of "liberal" as "adjective . . . 1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs . . . " See Anglican Church . . . Just kidding about that last part. Neither the 70 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion of churches, nor its 2.5 million-member American component, the Episcopal Church, are included in the definition. But lately, it seems to fit-even the more pejorative non-dictionary definition of "liberal" as someone who tries to be all things to all people.

After a handful of parishioners vehemently objected, more than 40 Episcopal bishops from around the country on Sunday consecrated the denomination's first openly gay bishop, asking God to fill him with the Holy Spirit. More than 4,000 spectators who witnessed the historic consecration in a University of New Hampshire sports arena, delivered a standing ovation when Rev. V. Gene Robinson emerged from the circle of crimson-clad bishops as a bishop himself in the New Hampshire diocese.

Many conservative Anglicans would agree with Nigerian lay minister Davis Mac-Iyalla that the summer of 2003 -- when the Episcopal Church approved the first openly gay bishop -- left a gaping hole and wrenching pain in their hearts. But not for the same reasons. For Mac-Iyalla, that summer was when the Anglican Church of Nigeria, in which he was born, baptized and became faithful turned its back on him because he is gay. "God created me a gay man and put me in the womb of my mother.